Kabob Kubideh (or Grilled Ground Beef on Skewers with Middle Eastern Spices) is delicious and easy to make! And this tasty recipe for the grill is low-carb, Keto, low-glycemic, gluten-free, Paleo or Whole 30, and South Beach Diet Phase One. Use the Recipes-by-Diet-Type Index to find more recipes like this one.

One of my favorite restaurants in Salt Lake is The Med, a very inexpensive place that features foods from all the Mediterranean countries. On the section of the menu designated Persian Food they have a dish called Kabob-e Kubideh that I love to order. It's made of very finely ground beef mixed with onions and spices, including turmeric, and then grilled. The meat is probably ground twice to produce a dense texture similar to Gyro meat. At Cafe Med it's served with Tzatziki sauce, the perfect companion to the slightly-spicy flavor of the meat.

(This recipe for Kabob Kubideh or Grilled Ground Beef on Skewers with Middle Eastern Spices was first posted in 2005 and updated with better photos in 2009, so you can tell how long I've been loving this recipe.)

When I first started my blog in 2005, I did some experimenting to try to reproduce this dish at home. I searched on the internet for Kubideh (also spelled Koobideh) and found several recipes. I tried one, and the result was nothing like the dish at Cafe Med.

Then I visited a Middle Eastern grocery store in Salt Lake (now gone) where the owner recommended Sadaf Ground Meat Kabob Seasoning. You can probably find it at your favorite Middle Eastern Store (or follow the link above to buy at Amazon.com) but if you don't want to buy the spices, there are some other suggestions in the recipe. (And in case anyone is wondering, this company hasn't paid me to promote their product and they have no idea I am mentioning it here!)

Now I would probably cook this on blade-type skewers (like these skewers that I got in Turkey), but I originally made Kubideh with these wonderful double skewers that I bought in California at a lovely little shop called Plaza Gourmet, a place I visited on a foodie outing with my step-sister Bobbi.

Next time I might add onions, but I followed the recipe I had scribbled in my notebook back in 2005 and ground together 1 lb. hamburger, 2 T Sadaf Ground Kabob Seasoning, and 1/4 cup water in the food processor. This double grinding of the meat is traditional in Middle Eastern cooking, and keeps the meat on the skewers.

Then the meat needs to be refrigerated for several hours so the flavors can develop. You could even grind the seasoning with the meat in the morning before work, and cook the kabobs when you get home.

When it's time to cook, divide the meat into four pieces, then form each into a long cylinder and push a skewer into it. You want to make them uniformly thick so they'll cook evenly.

Cook the skewered kabobs on a pre-heated grill at medium high heat. Of course I had to rotate them and try for grill marks, but that's not essential. When the first side is well-browned, turn the kabobs carefully, for a total cooking time of about 15-18 minutes. I used an instant-read thermometer to check the internal temperature, which should be at least 160F for ground beef.

This would be great with Tzatziki sauce and Middle Eastern Tomato Salad for a low-carb meal. If you don't mind some carbs, you could add something like Spicy Rice. Kabob Kubideh (Grilled Ground Beef Skewers with Middle Eastern Spices)
(Makes 4 Kubideh kabobs, grilled ground meat skewers like this are also sometimes called Kofta of Kefta.)

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground beef (I used ground beef with only 10% fat)
1/2 onion, very finely chopped (optional)
2 T Sadaf Ground Meat Kabob Seasoning (See suggestions below and other ideas after the recipe if you don't have this seasoning.)
1/4 cup water
olive oil, for oiling the grill

Instructions:

(If you don't have Sadaf Ground Kabob Seasoning, the package lists the ingredients as onions, salt, pepper, sumac, parsley, turmeric, and other spices. Most recipes for Kubideh that I found online season the meat with turmeric, onion, garlic, salt and pepper. Some recipes add parsley, lemon juice, or bread crumbs to the mixture. See after the recipe for variations of Kubideh from other food bloggers as well as a recipe from a reader named Donna who is married to a man from Iran.)

Put ground beef in food processor fitted with steel blade. Add 2 T Sadaf Kabob Seasoning mixed with 1/4 cup water. Process until finely ground. Put meat into a plastic container with a snap-on lid and refrigerate two hours or as long as all day.

Oil grill grates with a paper towel dipped in olive oil, then preheat gas or charcoal grill to medium high heat. (You can only hold your hand there for a few seconds at that heat.) Form meat into cylinder shaped patties. Put meat on skewers, or you can cook them right on the grill without a skewer. (I had double skewers, which worked well, although Kubideh is cooked on blade type skewers in the Middle East.)

If you'd like criss-cross grill marks, cook kabobs about 4 minutes on first side, then rotate and cook 3-4 minutes more. Carefully turn kabobs and cook the second side, for a total cooking time of about 15-18 minutes. If you have an instant-read meat thermometer, ground beef should be cooked to an internal temperature of 160F.

Low-Carb Diet / Low-Glycemic Diet / South Beach Suggestions:
Made with lean ground beef, this is a great main dish for any phase of the South Beach Diet, or most other eating plans, including Paleo if you skip the yogurt sauce.

If you want nutritional information for a recipe, I recommend entering the recipe into Calorie Count, which will calculate it for you. Or if you're a member of Yummly, you can use the Yum button on my site to save the recipe and see the nutritional information there.

A Reader Shares Her Recipe for Kubideh:
After I posted this recipe I heard from a reader named Donna who's married to a man from Iran. She shared her version of this dish, which I have to say, sounds like it would taste wonderful.

Put the lemon juice and onion in a food processor or blender. Puree. Add to meat and mix well. Form into patties and grill on skewers or straight on the bbq pit. Also you can bake these on a broiler pan in the oven and have a very nice substitute for the grilled ones.

(Thanks Donna!)

Variations on Kabob Kubideh from Other Bloggers:Kabab Koobideh from Rasa Malaysia

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37 comments:

Ilva, it says on the packet: Onions, Salt, Pepper, Sumac, Parsley, Turmeric, and other Spices. I know you can get Sumac from Penzeys (www.penzeys.com), which I am pretty sure ships to Europe. I don't taste too much salt or pepper. I would say it's mostly Turmeric, onion, parsley, with just a touch of sumac. Lemon juice is sometimes used as a substitute for Sumac too. It was really delicious. I am glad I bought a couple of packets because the store is not too close to my house.

Ya know what might be good, is to skewer a sausage on there first, then wrap the ground meat around it.OooOOo, and I'll bet fresh cilantro would be good along with some lemon zest. Yeshir, I'm sure it would.

Hi Kalyn,I used the kubideh seasoning that I ordered from Amazon last week. Using 2 tbsp for a pound of ground meat, I think one jar would season about 6 pounds of meat. I used lamb instead of beef. I had a package of it in the freezer so I decided it was time to use it up. Next time I do this with lamb, I am going to add chopped onion and chopped green pepper to the food processor and use less water. I also have some Penzey's dried celery so might fling some of that in too. I like the spices a lot, but felt it needed more for my taste. Maybe it was the lamb that needs more seasoning. Anyway I love this recipe and if you have leftovers like I did, you can make a great Ph 2 or 3 sandwich with them!

I was wondering how the ground meat would hold together on the skewer, and those double skewers are perfect. I'll have to look for them. My parents recently gave me my grandmother's meat grinder. It's a great piece, but it looks like a food processor could do the work in record time.

simple and delicious. I was told that the metal skewers help to conduct heat within the kebab/kubedeh for better cooking. The new food of life which holly mentions is a very nice book. I don't have double skewers but what I have is not round but flat so the meat doesn't fall off.

I have some very long flat metal skewers, with wooden handles. The handles don't get hot, but need to rest off the edge of the grill or they'll burn. The skewers came from a Greek market so I think they're used for souvlaki, but they work well for kebabs like these, too.

Sally, I think the double grinding of the meat is the most essential thing, combined with the chilling of the meat. You don't mention whether you did that, but if not I'd definitely try it. Also using the double skewers like I have (or the thick blade-type skewers they use in the middle east will definitely help.) If you don't have one of those types of skewers, I might just make a cylinder shape and grill without a skewer.

I made this the other day for dinner, only I used ground lamb instead of ground beef for the protein. I cooked them in my contact grill and didn't use skewers, but I formed the meat into a kubideh shape. It all turned out fabulous and my husband declares that he has a new favorite dish.

Thanks for the great recipe! Not only does it taste great and was super easy, but it is carb friendly. It doesn't get better than that.

I am half-Iranian and I grew up kabob-e koobideh. I married an Iranian and kabob is a huge part of our lives! My mother-in-law has been making this wonderful recipe for so long that she can do it with her eyes closed! Flat skewers are generally used, and you purée the onions in a food processor, then drain most of the juice. She also puts the meat in the food processor. I wrote about making kabob with her on my blog.

Silly question I suppose but the size of those kabobs seems like you could forgo the skewers as the meat is not so small that it would fall through the grate, right? Been wanting to make these but the skewers were holding me back. Was going to buy the traditional flat skewers as they sell them on amazon but I think I'm just going to make elongated patties and grill them. The skewers were originally used when they cooked over an open fire with no grill.

This recipe sounds good. I know it will not have the open pit taste, but I do not have a BBQ grill, so I am going to try it on my counter top George Forman grill, you still get the grill marks and less fat from the meat. They will also cook in 1/2 the time as usual, because the grill heats on the top and bottom plate's. I hope they will still turn out as good as they sound. thnx for sharing.....

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